Almost 23 Months... Missed the 22 Months update

Ooops! Who noticed that I missed the 22-months-old update...anyone? It just slipped by and then was packed away with the Christmas decorations. So here I am doing the 23 month update, early, I might add. :)

Blaine continues to amaze us. He is all-boy. His hugs and kisses and love make us melt and he gets sweeter by the minute. He also gets more, ahem, how shall I say it - - difficult - - by the minute. He now knows how to tell us "No" and he uses this one quite often - actually, all day long. One cute thing he is doing is asking "what is this, Mama". For example, today I had a red onion out for dinner and he was standing on his stool (helping me, of course) and when he noticed it for the first time he lifted it up and held it up towards my face and said, "what is dis, Mama?". SO cute! He also asks this when he hears a noise he's never heard, and he points to his ear at the same time. I kiss him and tell him how much I love him every time he does cute things like this and all the time.

He continues to enjoy art projects. Here he is with his art apron on - a gift from GG. He thinks the scissors are the best art tool right now. He'd rather cut paper than color it.

We don't use the terms "bad boy" and "good boy" at our house but try to use terms like "good choice, bad choice " or "patient" and "gentle". He really gets this and especially (on good days) likes to make "good choices". The other day we were playing in the toy room and he proceeded to take out all of the toys from all of his bins and I told him that if he took them all out (and dumped them - which I knew he would do) that he would then need to pick every toy up and put it back. He would have to make a "good choice" and clean up after himself. We played for about 10 minutes and then I went to the kitchen to make dinner. After about 15 minutes, I peeked into the front room and found him making a "good choice" cleaning up after himself, quietly and diligently, all by himself! He even climbed into the toy-box to get all of toys down in there :) This was so sweet to watch. I watched him for a while and then when he ran to me I praised him and hugged him and kissed his sweet face for cleaning up after himself. I am sure that this won't be the case when he is 15 - but a mom can dream, can't she?

I have yet to get it recorded, but B knows his ABC's (though the E-F-G part throws him off) and sings it often, unprompted. He still loves to read and before bedtime his favorite line is, "one more book, peeas." One night I read 15 books to him.

Sleep is still a struggle and we're hoping to catch a break before the baby comes. He's just not a sleeper. Never has been and hopefully he will be someday. He has been getting up between 4 am and 5:30 am for about 3 months and the pediatrician told us to push his bedtime back (so he would sleep later), so he is now going to bed at 8 pm - but he is still getting up about 5:00 am - if we're lucky, he gets up at 5:45. It's pretty grueling. And poor David... Blaine only wants him in the morning and screams bloody murder if I go into his room. He actually tells me to "go" and "get David." The experts say that toddlers his age should be getting 13+ hours of sleep and he's lucky if he gets 10, and that is with a nap! I guess we are in the stage of perpetual exhaustion. (Yawn.)

Speaking of yawning - I need to go to bed myself.

G-night.